I'm doing some field research for a new RPG I'm writing. As players or DM's, what do enjoy about running and playing in RPGs? In particular, what parts or mechanics of D&D and its various editions do you enjoy?
Personally, I love that feeling of standing over the dust after a hard fought combat with adrenaline still rushing in your veins, knowing that your character could of lived or died by the role of a dice.
Posted Aug 22, 2017, 3:44 PM UTC
I like drinking. And it's better to drink with friends than it is to drink alone.
Unless you have highest tolerance which means your friends pass out way before you do and thus, you end up drinking alone.
I can promise you that I am not cursed with a high tolerance.
My drinking is much cheaper.
When I find a pile of money, I don't add a +10000gp to my character tab in the UI sheet. I have to carry it which means figuring out how which means I might not be able to carry all of it or might need to come back later, which leads to ingenuity and hard choices.
Extrapolate this logic to all things.
Hanging out with fun people, doin' a little questing, dying in funny fashion.
This right here. The original group i play with was having a ton of fun but one guy was playing a lawful/good ranger and wanted to be extremely main quest focused (curse of strahd) and it kinda knocked us down a peg. We added another person (well 2 but he died during a werewolf battle) and it has kind of thrown the entire thing into disarray. So I'm hoping we can revert back into our original group and just convince the ranger in game to live a little. Doesn't help i'm Chaotic/Evil and the other ranger is Chaotic/Neutral (which is more so how I play but my evil might come out at the end)
Seeing a shared story unfold. Imagining the different insane things that characters do and embracing that by putting them in more interesting positions.
I love the inner-party character growth, and the story you take part in. My favorite times are when we take watches in pairs, or talk to NPC's, and the conversations start to flesh everyone out.
In 5e, ease of character creation, up to and including being able to have RP hooks and some identity built right into character creation.
In AD&D my brother's group had a 4 inch binder of custom rules that you needed to know in addition to the basics. In 5e.. we have half a column in Homebrewery on actual rule changes and then another page with some extra feats we like.
I personally don't care much for almost dying, but my most of my RP background is in consent-based MUSHing (where nothing happens to your character unless you say it does. It was a lot of slice of life RP). As a result, drama in the non-combat moments is much more interesting to me than tinking on things with swords and being at the mercy of dice is an annoyance I'm forcing myself to deal with.
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As a DM, my favorite part of D&D is the collaborative aspect of the game. Specifically I love when I present a situation to my players and they come up with a response which I did not anticipate. Then I have to react and collaborate with them to continue the story in a meaningful way and reach some sort of conclusion to the interaction. Video games don't have this same level of improvised content and can become stale because of it. D&D never becomes stale, and when it threatens to be, someone inevitably comes up with an ingenious (or dumb) idea and the game continues in ways that neither of us predicted.
As a DM, I love watching all the in-fighting that the party may have. Arguing about whether or not to steal something or killing someone. I love watching them formulate plans. Its all so exciting